Ahead of the game, and then it passed him by

The very first captain of the Australian under-19 cricket team is still a leader. David Boon and Mike Haysman are no longer under his charge, instead Darryl Smith supervises 40 cranes and 200 of the 5000 fly-in, fly-outers employed by one of the biggest liquified natural gas projects on the planet.

His working day starts at 4.30am and finishes at 5pm. He'll check the cricket scores online here and there, but by the time the bus gets back to camp, stumps have already been drawn. He's not bothered; even when he's at home, Smith can't sit through whole sessions like he used to. ''I might have a glance, but it doesn't hold my interest that much any more.''

Darryl Smith photographed at work on Barrow Island.

A few of his co-workers on Barrow Island, 50 kilometres off the Pilbara coast, know the story of what he calls ''my one and only claim to fame''. Over the 20 days straight he spends surrounded by the Indian Ocean, or his eight days off back in Perth, it rarely comes up. ''But yeah, it sticks in my mind. I can remember everything of that day.''

It was February 1981, more than two years after he had captained Australia against England's best teenagers. The WACA Ground was heaving as Western Australia met Victoria in the semi-final of the domestic one-day competition - each team boasted eight Test players and in the local dressing room, a strapping 20-year-old donned his whites alongside Dennis Lillee, Rod Marsh, Kim Hughes and Terry Alderman.

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Smith says he ''doesn't want to come over like a dickhead'', but he just tells it as it is. He reflects that what happened after he walked to the middle ''wasn't really done in those days … but you're young, you don't have much regard for reputations''. Three times he hit Max Walker's whirling offerings into an increasingly frenzied crowd - once over fine leg, twice towards Queen's Gardens at cow corner. When Jeff Moss took a catch at long-on that's also still spoken of in ''blessed to witness it'' tones, he had made 42 off 23 balls.

Now 53, Smith shrugs that ''it was just my style, it was what I was good at''. Victoria's wicketkeeper, Richie Robinson, shook his hand as Moss clung to that stunning one-hander, and the crowd chanted a new hero's name as he wandered off.

Yet it's being in the field that he recalls most vividly, his fit young self patrolling the covers, tossing the ball to Lillee, who wore the yellow headband of his latter career for the first time that day while bowling a spell the likes of which Smith had never seen. ''Just handing him the ball, that was probably a bigger thrill for me than anything I did with the bat.'' The din had scarcely abated when he told officials he wouldn't be playing in the following weekend's final - because he was getting married. Nobody said anything, but he knows there was disappointment, wonders if it might have counted against him. Still, he knows only one person is responsible for stalling one of the great coodabeen careers: himself.

This is not your average wastrel's tale. Smith says he ran 10 kilometres a day and worked hard in the gym, while attacking a 1980s cricketer's social life with a similar zeal. He acknowledges the contradiction - he'd sweat and toil on his own, then not bother turning up for pre-season training with the WA state squad. ''I just felt that I wasn't good enough. I can't really explain it. That was my mental attitude, I suppose.''

Born in Woomera after his father's construction work took the Perth natives to South Australia, he swam before he walked and won lifesaving and state swimming medals as a boy. At 10, his parents returned to Fremantle, and while he didn't take up cricket until his teens, he soon stood out. Smith always opened the bowling and batted in the middle order in a manner that led to many an Ian Botham comparison.

''I suppose I was a bit before my time, batted like the guys do now in one-day cricket, didn't value my wicket that much back then. I was always big and strong … in juniors you can probably get away with a little bit.''

He did well in Christchurch at the Australian Schoolboys Championships, which then embraced New Zealand, and was named captain of the first Australian under-19 team to play the touring English, in Melbourne and Sydney early in 1979. He remembers Jonathan Agnew, Norman Cowans, Kim Barnett, that Boon was his vice-captain, Haysman a young star. ''But I honestly can't even remember the results.''

He played A-grade cricket for Fremantle at 16 under Ross Edwards, relished the strong competition against hard men, remembers the game being his great passion, feeling like he had the world at his feet. After the under-19s came state under-23 colts, but being thereabouts with the WA squad for a handful of years amounted to just two more one-dayers and a solitary first-class game against the touring Sri Lankans.

It didn't bother him; Smith believed he had found his level, and besides, he'd found a side of the game where he felt more at home. ''I really enjoyed the club scene, to be quite frank. I discovered wine, women and song early, was a bit of a larrikin.''

He's not the first or last young athlete who lit both ends of the wick. But while he'd change ''a few things here and there'', Smith is comfortable with a career that brought him great enjoyment, many friends and, at the level he was happiest, a reputation as a mighty cricketer.

Soon after that explosive debut, he was playing for Accrington in the Lancashire League, an English summer that didn't bring the runs or wickets expected of a county pro, but in which he put plenty back into the club in other ways - sharing his spoils, putting match payments across the bar, going out on the town with his teammates and their families. ''They were probably happy from that point of view.''

He remembers a high standard of cricket, compared favourably to the county scene, where crowds turned out to watch the likes of Michael Holding, Collis King and Franklyn Stephenson serving it up to the best local bats. ''It was an experience for a young bloke, I was only 21.''

His years in Perth grade cricket had parallels - Saturday afternoons playing with cars ringing sun-baked ovals, 40-odd members lending their support, Thursday nights in packed social rooms with beer flowing, raffles, ''skimpies'' behind the bar. It is a snapshot of another time in Australian sporting clubs, before the focus turned to kids and family. ''It was a different world back then.''

A move in his mid-20s to Bayswater-Morley spurred his best two seasons, runs, wickets and player awards that pushed Smith back into the state team frame. In a one-dayer against South Australia, David Hookes took to him as he had Walker four years earlier. ''I probably got a bit of my own back.''

At 29 he'd had enough, so dropped down to a local competition on carpet wickets, captain-coached Phoenix CC to premierships, took on fund-raising and ultimately the presidency. He worked as a policeman and at the Swan Brewery, had a stint coaching South Perth, but soon tired of listening to blokes moaning about why someone else was getting a game ahead of them. ''It just wasn't for me.''

His father died, his marriage ended, and he came to a realisation. ''I woke up that I was spending too much time socialising and carrying on, so I settled down and got out of it altogether. I'm not interested in sporting clubs any more and haven't been for a while.''

On Barrow Island, in the small window outside work, he has an early dinner, goes for a walk through the heavily restricted A-class nature reserve, reads the paper, phones wife Sue and goes to bed. A bar serves mid-strength beer, capped at four per day, but he doesn't bother. Back home, he has a place at Wandi, south of Perth, and plans to get out of this draining job in a year or so and spend more time there.

With first wife Carol he had Bronwyn and Kylie, then 20-year-old Jorjah with Sue. He doesn't wish there had been a son he could have steered towards a straighter sporting path, treasuring instead that his girls have always been healthy. Being an Australian cricketer now wouldn't sit well with him.

''I've got to be honest, I don't like the sledging,'' he says. ''No one played it harder than me. I was always competitive and you'd always say a few things, but it's gone to a new level. It's a bit pathetic really … all this other crap, finger-pointing. It's a bit like schoolkids, but you can't fight.''

Batting-wise, he thinks he could have made it at six or seven at state level, but always felt his bowling was a yard or two short of the pace needed to penetrate in first-class cricket. He'd change ''a couple of little things here and there'', but isn't mired in regret. He's glad he had an enjoyable sporting career.

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''I made a few poor decisions, like everyone. I probably would have played a bit more for WA, but I don't think I would have played higher. It was never a thing I wanted to do.''

Peter Hanlon has worked at The Age since 1995, initially as deputy sports editor, subsequently as editor of the Saturday and Sunday Age sports sections, and since 2007 as a senior sports writer. He writes extensively on the AFL, and has also covered the Beijing Olympics and Delhi Commonwealth Games.